Sycorax
by aeternium
Summary: They had intended to stay in Tal, but fate had other plans. A history of Shmi Skywalker and the family that changed the course of a galaxy.
1. Prologue: Avantal

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,  
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.  
- The Tempest, 3.2

* * *

_Once on this island lived the goddess Lio. Here she wandered the lush forests and spoke to tides and called the sun, her lover, to her when she missed him. But the goddess could not remain in one place for too long, and longed to return to her home in the sea. So she gave the island to her children, and told them to call it Avantal, because it was the home of her heart... _

"Avantal means home, my love," Bvisa's mother Hopi'iana had told her. "It means _to be the people._ Come back, and you will be home. You will be Tal."

This mantra was at first general wisdom, passed down by the clan mothers to their children, from one generation to the next. For the neighboring clans of the island – Eleia and Bvisa's own Liana – it was not so much lore as a way of life. Avantal was home, the be-all and end-all. The Tal people were blessed in their sacred lineage, and only Tal women had the ability to be at one with the divine. Avantal was holy ground, a safe haven to return to when that divinity was forgotten. It was the place to achieve oneness again.

"But I _am_ Tal, Mama," little Bvisa would say, not understanding how this could ever change.

"Yes," Hopi'iana would reply. "You are Tal. As am I, and my mother before me. As is your father and as are your brothers. We are the land, the tongue, the people, all united as one. _We_ are Avantal. But it is easy to forget, to lose the way. Return to this island and you will be home. You will be Tal."

The mantra became a gentle reminder as the years passed, a calm reassurance to slow down her restless daughter. Aptly named, the word itself meant _one who roams_, for she was always exploring, always wandering. But this was the touch of the sea goddess herself, so it was not discouraged. It was, in fact, because of this that Bvisa took on her clan name early. Well before her fifteenth year she became Bvisa'ana, _the roaming daughter of Lio._

Bvisa'ana rejected the underwater tunnel network that connected the inummerable islands of Melidaan, except under the most urgent of circumstances. She instead mapped the waterways of the ocean from island to island on her electroskiff, first making the jump between Avantal and Dalikei until, by her seventeenth year, she ventured into Undab for the very first time.

The desert islands were quite unlike anything she had seen. They seemed to Bvisa'ana the exact inverse of the Tal tropics, with vast stretches of sand interrupted by mere momentary patches of paradise.

The Undab had no identity, not like the Tal. They were nomads, living in small communities and eternally fending off invaders from the Banda wetlands. They had technology, but no society. They had innovation, but no fulfillment. They were not at one, and Bvisa'ana understood for the first time what it was not to be Tal. There was only one reason that she continued to return.

His name was Nindari.

His hair was a deep brown, his skin turned nearly the same color by the constant sun god Kaia, but his eyes were as blue as the desert sky. Bvisa'ana admired him for his skill in crafting weapons, rudimentary as Undab technology was, and for his calm and pleasant demeanor. Nindari was infatuated with her in turn for her ability in navigating and operating her electroskiff, for being so brave as to venture on adventures of her own. It shocked him to find so brash a thinker in a woman, but he found he rather liked it.

The true test came when he asked for her hand in marriage. As the eldest daughter, Bvisa'ana had a duty to the Tal above all else. But while Nindari was still coming to terms with the very idea of a matriarchy, he was willing to go to any lengths to be with her. As a demonstration of her devotion to him and gratitude towards his understanding, Bvisa'ana changed her name a final time.

Undab and Tal were neighboring regions, and so they shared many of the same words, if not the meaning. The Undab translation of Bvisa'ari was _one who wanders between possibilities._ In Tal, it meant _one who walks the sky._

Hopi'iana welcomed Nindari into the family with open arms, but privately warned her daughter once more before her wedding, "You are this island, my daughter, and as am I. As is Nindari now. We are all Avantal."

She donned the blue-green robes of Lio and let loose her bright hair. Nindari appeared only slightly alien in the golden robes of Kaia, but his vibrant smile was set in its natural place. They were married on one of the ancient boardwalks that ran between Avantal and Moami, in the direction of Undab.

That night she understood – _truly_ understood – why it was that Tal women were so revered. It was only through her that her husband could achieve the true oneness that was inherent within her womanhood. From then on, Bvisa'ari and Nindari were never far apart. Some called it the ardor of young love, and, to a certain extent, they were right. The truth was, there was nowhere Bvisa'ari felt safer, more at peace, than in Nindari's arms.

Had she known the significance of her final year on Melidaan, perhaps she would have spent her time differently. Perhaps not. It was a natural state of being for Bvisa'ari to wander among the lush forests, to mark the tides and motions of the sea, and to call her desert husband to her when they were apart for too long.

But however she _might_ have spent that year, had she known the significance of it, doesn't matter. What _does_ matter is that she passed her days much as her ancestor, the ocean goddess Lio, had passed her own final days on that island.

Bvisa'ari was nineteen years old, one year married, and seven months pregnant when she left Avantal forever.


	2. The Boonta's Eve Visitor

(And by that destiny) to perform an act  
Whereof what's past is prologue; what's to come,  
In yours and my discharge.

- The Tempest, 2.1

* * *

_The Dune Sea, Tatooine – 53 BBY:_

Boonta's Eve was Shmi's favorite day of the year.

More often than not, the caravan wasn't close enough to Anchorhead to watch the parades and dancing, or near enough to Mos Espa's racing circuit to catch the Classic – something for which Shmi was infinitely grateful. She was rather boyish in the adrenaline rush she used to get from those races, but ever since Bey Torrus was gambled off three years ago, the thrill had gone out of it. Podracing became just another threat, if not as constant as Tuskens or the tiny chip floating somewhere in her bloodstream.

Too far out into the desert to take part in the festivities, the caravan brought the celebration to them.

"What are you, Manad, a baby?" Keir laughed. "Upper arm strength, that's it."

She dropped the heavy case of brew back into the sand and spun around. "Upper arm strength, huh?" she repeated, advancing on him. "Oh, I'll show you upper arm strength, lardass." Without warning, Manad had knocked him to the ground and suddenly the Rodian girl and human boy were rolling in the sand, laughing through the effort of their scuffle.

"Truce, truce!" he finally called, trapped under Manad and thoroughly out of breath.

She rolled off of him and stood up, smiling, dusting the sand off of her skirt. "Good," she said, pulling Keir up by his outstretched arm. "So are you going to help me or are you going to make me tear the kid away?" She cocked her head to the side, signaling him to walk with her around the side of Torun's caravan, away from the preparations to where the eopies were grazing in the shade.

"Don't bother," said Keir, falling in step with her despite himself. "She's been working on it all day, it would be cruel to stop her now."

"I can hear you both, you know," Shmi commented dryly, leaning cross-legged against the side of a grounded eopie. A rough pouch of green-gray beads lay open at her side, her careful fingers picking out from among their spilled contents to add to the string held in her other hand.

"What's that, then?" asked Keir, plopping down beside her.

"A necklace."

"And somehow that gets you out of setting up?"

Shmi picked up another bead. "I'm fifteen tomorrow. It's kind of a big thing in Tal – a tradition, I guess."

Manad plucked the bead from her hand and rolled it between her own suction-like fingers, examining it for a moment before saying, "I hate to tell you, kid, but you're not in Tal anymore."

"I never was. Try telling my mom that."

"Yeah, Skywalker's a piece of work all right," agreed Keir. She ignored him.

She liked Keir, but he didn't understand what it was between she and her mother. Bvisa'ari was free-born, not like them. Not like Shmi, who spoke her language but didn't understand at all what she meant when Bvisa'ari spoke to her of Lio and Kaia and a thousand islands and what it meant to be the people. Shmi, whose name was actually Shmi'dari, had no people. She had her mother, and that was the only thing that stopped her from asking for an end to the stories. There was no use for them here on Tatooine. They made her a stranger to two worlds, but she loved her mother too much to tell her so.

"So," he said, "you finishing up soon?"

"I'll be around in a moment. You two should probably head back before Torun starts sniffing around," she said.

"Not likely," said Manad. "He's doing business."

"Jawas?"

"Humans."

"We're too far out," Shmi protested, looking up for the first time.

"Doesn't stop us," Keir pointed out, picking himself up. "You're right, though. Torun doesn't catch us, Sorak Fen will, and she's in a spectacular mood today."

Manad rolled her eyes and grabbed Keir's arm, effectively pulling him back in the direction they had come, leaving Shmi alone once again.

Whatever other feelings she harbored for the life her mother wouldn't let go of, she didn't mind making the necklace. Shmi had always admired the one Bvisa'ari wore, enough to listen well when it was explained to her.

"There is no day more important than a girl's naming day, not even her wedding," Bvisa'ari had said (in Tal, of course – languages were not a strength of hers, and Basic was only to be used as a last resort). "Her fifteenth life day is the day she leaves her childhood name behind and becomes a true leader of her clan. Each member of the clan presents her with a bead, and she in turn strings them all together. From her naming day on, she is never without that necklace."

Of course, the one that Bvisa'ari wore was not the one she had made nineteen years before. That one – made of golds and turquoises and ambers of different hues – had been taken only four years after its creation, on the same day Bvisa'ari had been stolen from her life on Melidaan. She had made another one just as quickly as she could gather up the beads – a dull tan this time, but otherwise not so different from the one Shmi herself was creating.

"That's pretty."

Shmi looked up, startled. Lost in her own ruminations, she hadn't noticed the shadow that had fallen in the path in front of her, nor the boy it belonged to. There was nothing remarkable in his looks – hair bleached from the sun, maybe a year or two older than her – but there was something in his unassuming presence, the unaffected notice of her craftsmanship.

"Thank you," she said, still squinting up at him. "I haven't seen you before." That wasn't terribly surprising. The safety-in-numbers mentality caused the traders to travel together for long stretches across the desert, and there were always new additions when paths were crossed. Out of the entire train, Shmi was friendly with few slaves outside of Torun's caravan, and even fewer trader families.

"No, you wouldn't have," the boy responded. "I live just over that ridge."

"Oh."

A moment passed before he clarified, "My dad's doing business with the Zabrak."

"Torun," Shmi said, eyeing him for a moment before returning to her beads.

"And what, you live here?" he pressed, forcing her to look back up at him.

"Yes."

"With your parents?"

"My mom. She's probably over with your dad and Torun."

"Oh," he said, "the one that doesn't talk."

"The one that doesn't speak Basic when she can help it," Shmi clarified, not to be rude, more to stamp out the obvious assumption he had made that her mother was simple.

"Ahh."

It was a show put on to gratify her and they both knew it, but still Shmi decided that she liked this boy, whoever he was.

"So," she said, "your dad's a trader."

He shook his head. "No. Just… trading, I guess." They shared a small smile, but she couldn't help but notice his face darken for a moment.

"You don't look too happy about it."

He sighed heavily and ran a rough hand through his bleached hair. Then, looking around (for his father, no doubt), he sunk to the ground in front of her and pulled out a small package wrapped in coarse grey cloth. He placed it between them and let the contents fall out – a bracelet, nearly the length of Shmi's forearm, small designs etched into the handbeat bronze.

Shmi's eyes went wide.

"It's beautiful."

"It's all I could get away, but he'll notice it's gone soon."

"He wants to sell it?" she asked, looking up.

The boy nodded. "It belonged to Mom. He was going to keep all of it, but she died four years ago and the harvest's been terrible ever since." He furrowed his brow. "I mean, I get it, but it's still… it's not – "

"Not his to sell."

He looked up, surprised, but nodded again. Shmi understood. She didn't know why it should resonate so strongly with her, but the image of her own mother's naming day necklace immediately came to mind. She knew why he felt he shouldn't care so much. She knew why he did all the same.

"He'll come looking for it?"

"He'll work out it's gone soon enough, and trust me, he won't be shy about stripping me down to look for it."

"What about me?"

"What?"

Shmi looked down at the bronze armlet once again, and then quickly back into the boy's brown eyes. "He wouldn't think you gave it away, right?"

"I don't think – "

"You were looking for a place to hide it, weren't you?"

He eyed her for a moment. She was used to it – her powers of perception (a gift from Lio, Bvisa'ari would say, though Shmi took that to mean woman's intuition) were formidable. She didn't understand half the time how she knew the things she did. Shmi supposed she was just good at reading people, the changes in the wind, the universal structure. The Tal were a deeply spiritual people, rooted in the unity of nature and people – that was another favorite of her mother.

Perhaps it was no mystery at all that the boy's motives were so transparent to her.

"Yes," he finally affirmed.

She put her hand on his and leaned forward. "Let me take care of it for you. I won't lose it, and you'll have it back when we meet again."

When, not if.

"And what do I get in return?"

She smiled, suddenly aware of how close they were. Quietly she reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a small handful of rough, hand-carved japor snippets.

"Your future."


	3. Japor and Amber

Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple

Some vanity of mine art

- The Tempest, 4.1

* * *

"My mom used to do this, you know," the boy said as Shmi lay the japor snippets out between them.

"Did she?"

He nodded and watched as she arranged the blue-lined _dacta_ in triads, the brown-lined _koner_ in pairs. "Whenever her friends came to visit," he said. "I always watched. She said I was too young, though."

The simple _var_ and the green-lined _nalli_ on opposing sides, the red-lined _skeebo_ as the central pieces.

She gestured towards the snippets.

"You know what to do then."

He smiled and closed his eyes. Slowly he reached out his hand and let it hover above the japor until finally, tentatively, his pointer finger landed squarely on a snippet. He opened his eyes on his choice.

Shmi smiled.

_Kara_, of course.

"_Kara_ is the worker," she said, quickly returning the _nalli_ and _var_ to her pocket. "Constant endurance. Not surprising," she grinned, gesturing at the vast landscape of their world. He shrugged. Endurance was the constant state of Tatooine life, that was something they both knew only too well.

"What's interesting about that, though, is that _kara_ is the central figure of the _dacta_, water-based..." She squinted at the snippet for a moment and then looked the boy squarely in the eye. "You're a moisture farmer."

"True."

"That's not going to change."

"Probably also true."

"It is true," she insisted, and at that they both laughed.

"Okay, go on," he said.

Shmi paused a moment, then gently lay a finger on a red-lined _skeebo_. "A son," she said. "_Kara_ is rarely compatible with _nalli_ so, a son. I – " She broke off abruptly, then scooped up one of the _skeebo_ and jiggled it in her hand for a moment.

"What is it?"

For a moment she didn't say anything. Then, rubbing her thumb over the red lines, she returned it to its place.

"Maybe two sons."

"What makes you say that?"

This time Shmi's hand moved to scoop up all three _dacta_. She jiggled them in her hand as she had the _skeebo_, then let them drop one by one back into the sand.

"The _dacta_ are a triad," she explained. "Your life is one of threes, and when it comes to relationships, that means you and two others. You can't function in twos."

He frowned. "What does that mean exactly?"

"You and your father, for example. How's that going without your mother?"

"Point made."

"And in love – "

"What about love?"

Shmi laughed. He was, after all, a teenage boy.

"You'll want to tread carefully," she said. "The _dacta_ hold their sway over the _koner_, too." She motioned to the brown-lined pair. "Probably there'll be two women, and you'll have to make a choice. Or if – "

Once again, she broke off.

"What?"

"You keep doing that."

"Doing what?"

Silently she pointed to his left hand, which was tapping lightly against one of the _koner_.

"Sorry," he said. "Am I not supposed to touch them?"

Shmi plucked the snippet from the sand and placed it in front of her.

"This is _neshter_," she said, "the wandering lover. And this – " she picked up the red-lined skeebo that she had been earlier distracted by " – is _habo_, the errant son. You were doing the same thing to it before."

"So?"

"So they're usually incompatible with _kara_," she shrugged. "I would have said _freher_ and _amabo_ for you, especially considering your affinity with water, but you seem to like these instead."

"And that's bad?"

"No, not at all. It could mean – "

"Oy, there you are!" shouted a gruff voice.

"_Chubba_," the boy muttered.

With alarming speed, he thrust the bundle that contained his mother's armlet underneath Shmi's skirt and, with one last look of sincere apology, took off in the direction of his father. As the muffled shouts of their argument grew fainter and fainter, Shmi reached for the bundle and let its contents fall out. A small smile grew on her face as she slowly slid the bronze armlet above her wrist.


End file.
